Deckajam

Kevin Energy, pioneer of the rave scene and founder of Freeform (along with Sharkey), notably ‘retired’ from the industry in 2011, putting a statement out on his label (Nu Energy) website stating ‘The decision for time out has been a very difficult one but at this stage in my life it is the right move for me. I feel very privileged to have had an unthinkably awesome music career and I take with me some very magic moments, achievements and lifelong friends.’ He went on to thank his Dad, as ‘the Ultimate Raver’.

Now, it seems, he is back with a new musical collective called Deckajam describing themselves as a ‘fresh, raw and diverse bass / electro / rocktronica live act’ and featuring rapper Voodoo Browne amongst others.
And they’re opening the mainstage at United Festival this year. We caught up with Kevin to find out more.

Music News: We thought you'd retired. What happened/how did the project come about?

That’s a pretty long story - I’ll try and sum it up without waffling on ;) I took a break to think about the bigger picture of my career and life in general as I had been hard at both DJing and running my record labels since 1998 non stop to 2011. For me, I couldn’t’t picture ‘Kevin Energy’ being my only life career as my NEC record company was barely breaking even financially and gigs were not as plentiful due to changes in trends within the underground rave scene. I needed to secure myself a lifelong career so I took time out to focus on that, and since then have created and established a business www.bigjamstudios.co.uk which I’m pleased to say is doing really well.

In the background, whilst all this was going on, myself, Nick 235 and vocalist Rhona Nolasco had been having some jam sessions just for fun and the first DeckaJam tracks were born out of that. The first being ‘Find The Freedom’ followed closely by ‘Amazing’ and the early version of ‘Stuck In The Middle’ Due to my industry connections, a lot of people encouraged us to push the project forward and we were quickly matched up with more great vocalists like Laura Bayston, Voodoo Browne and Sarah Alexandra who I was already working with on her solo music. Along came some live rehearsals and our first gig, so we hooked up the the awesome drummer Will Spurling and had a complete show.

Since then, producer and engineer NJC has come on board and really upped the way our live show works. He has helped greatly with the production and our general confidence whilst performing, and we now feel like a complete unit. It’s such a fun and dynamic project, which for me is ticking so many boxes musically. Now I’m back on track with some positive projects for my career I’m considering doing some more rave work under my Kevin Energy name next year. My fans have stayed loyal to me and I really appreciate that. They have understood my reasons which I have always been open about.

I’m the founder in some ways as it was my idea to call both Nick and Rhona into the studio to have some writing and performing sessions for fun. Nick has worked alongside me since the creation and is very much my partner in crime with all things DeckaJam.

Music News: What do you feel you bring to the DeckaJam sound?

I like to think that I bring the experience of knowing what makes people react on a dance floor. I’ve spent the majority of my adult weekends throwing down beats to excited crowds and I like to think that experience has found its way into the DeckaJam material. Musically, I feel both myself and Nick have the same enjoyment of euphoric melodies and a sense of a musical journey which we always like to make a signature of our music. Beats wise, you’ll notice there’s a wide range of styles and BPM’s and that is intentional as we have a love for moist dance genres and we wanted to keep our performances varied to reflect this. Being able to switch things up and grab people’s attention is fast becoming a trademark highlight of our performances.

Music News: How are you feeling about opening the mainstage at United this year? And what can we expect from your live show?

I’m super pumped for this. I know the promoters will deliver top production and that the crowd will be hype - in a way it feels like we’re destined to grace that stage, and we have found a really unique way to trigger authentic breakbeat samples from an acoustic drum kit that as far as I know, has not been done before in an act like this. If we pull it off, it will be amazing and the best performance in our journey so far!

Music News: Let's hope the Ultimate Raver will be in the front row...

Deckajam release their album ‘TotalJamnation’ this week. Find out more at www.deckajam.com